


taking a stand

by darth_stitch



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Catholic Character, Gen, Inspired by Real Events, Jewish Character, Jewish Comics Day, This is My Cap, World War II, historical fiction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 18:54:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7000417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darth_stitch/pseuds/darth_stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young seminarian opens his door to two soldiers and a child, seeking refuge from the Gestapo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	taking a stand

Karol hopes that his friend Jurek is safe.  
  
At first, the Nazis made his friends wear the yellow stars on their clothes.  At first, there were laws and new regulations designed to exclude them from certain places and public events.  Soon enough, books began to be burned, jobs and livelihoods were taken away.  

And of course, there were always those people who gave a louder voice to their prejudices and their envy, adding salt to already painful wounds or shutting their hearts and minds from all this "trouble" - refusing to show compassion or giving in to their own fears.   

_Are we not all God's children?_   Karol remembers telling Jurek once, comforting and reassuring him when Jurek's presence in the parish church had been questioned by an elderly neighbor.   
  
And then, the Nazis took them all away.   

Everyone thinks they are simply set to work in those camps, slaving away to make more guns and tanks and planes and ships for Hitler’s armies.  But there are whispers that other things are happening to them.  Terrible things.  Unspeakable things.  He remembers the haunted expression of that girl who collapsed in front of him on the railway platform.  He patted her hand in comfort all throughout that long, terrible journey to Kraków and safety, listened to her stories of the labor camp she escaped from falling from her lips in tearful whispers.    
  
Karol fingers his rosary and whispers the _Ave_ and in every syllable there is the thought: _Mother, these are your people, shelter them.  Mother, keep them safe from harm - Jurek and Tesia and Ginka…. all of them.   Mother, please let them all come home._  
  
He himself has not emerged from this war unscathed.  Even now, his shoulder aches from that accident.  Even now, he wakes up from nightmares, hearing the Gestapo marching around, knocking down doors with their heavy boots.    
  
His prayers are interrupted by a furtive knock in a certain pattern on his door.  Karol knows then that there is someone in need.  
  
He is confronted by two Americans and a tiny girl in a blue dress, with that accursed yellow star.   The dark-haired one is leaning heavily on his friend.  There is blood on his shoulder.  
  
He quickly lets them in.  
  
“We couldn’t leave her behind,” the other American explains.  His uniform is strange - the shirt is a bright blue and yet, oddly enough, he too wears a star on his chest.  The star is white, partially covered by his brown leather jacket.  
  
“No, we couldn’t - but getting shot still hurts like a sonuvabitch,” his friend grits out.  He hisses through his teeth as Karol begins to disinfect the wound.  
  
“I’m sorry, Buck.“  
  
“Don’t be sorry - you had to shield the kid first.“  The brunette winks at the little girl - who couldn’t have been more than five or six.  She giggles.  “That oversized fucking frisbee of yours has to be good for something.”  
  
_“Language!“_   The blonde man _is_ carrying a shield, its colors of red white and blue dulled with dirt and grime, with the same white star right in its center.  Karol finds himself smiling.  It is an unusual, yet fitting weapon for a soldier.  
  
“Sorry about that, Father.  How does that thing go again, Steve?  Bless us for we have sinned etc. etc.” “Buck” is clearly unrepentant.  
  
“I’m still studying and I'm yet to be ordained,” Karol answers with a wry grin.  “But you will be added to my prayers.”  
  
“We could always use those,” says the blond American with the star on his chest.   “Will she be safe with you?  I don’t know if we can ever find her people.  The Gestapo came first…. but HYDRA would have finished things.“   His mouth is set in a grim line but there is grief in his eyes.  
  
Karol nods.  His throat is tight.  "I know where she can be hidden in safety.  Thank you."  And still to be raised in the faith of her fathers and her mothers, so she would not ever forget.  
  
Later, Karol will start calling the blond American "Stefan” instead of his given name of Steve and his friend Buck will join in the good-natured teasing.  Later, they will laugh, because the little girl - Rozalia - will need this little bit of brightness and comfort after her own sobbing nightmares.   
  
Later, Buck will put his soldier's cap on his head, take the little girl's hand in his own and start with:  _"Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam, dayan ha-emet...."_  
  
And Stefan will help her rend part of the hem of her blue dress for mourning.  Karol too will cut away a piece of black cloth from his seminarian's uniform for a mourning ribbon in her hair.   
  
Buck will recite the prayers of the Mourners' _Kaddish_ and Karol will join him, even as he unfolds his own rosary again and holds it tight in his hands.   _Mother, your people are in peril, shield them._  
  
He is surprised to see Stefan clutch his own rosary and yet know the _Kaddish_ as well.  Their eyes meet in shared understanding - of a childhood spent among friends of a different, yet equally beautiful faith, of knowing some part of their rituals - what they have been privileged to share and witness - to be a part of that grace.   
  
They are not enough, truly, for a proper _minyan_ and they must be quiet, to arouse no suspicion from spies.  They could not follow all the rituals due to time and constraints but all of them had faith in a G-d that would understand.   
  
Rozalia will later name all she had lost - her mother, her father and her brother and sister.  Karol commits those names to memory.     
  
Later, Stefan will give Rozalia his last bit of chocolate before he and Buck finally make their farewells.  
  
When they are gone, Karol does keep his promise and adds them to his prayers - entrusting them to the Blessed Mother in Heaven - with Jurek and Tesia and all his other friends.    He prays that they remain safe.  He prays that all of them will live through these terrible days.  
  
He prays that they will all come home.  
  
Karol finds himself weeping when he learns that Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were among those who had fallen.  
  
Karol would weep harder when he learns that Jurek will be one of the very, very few of his friends to come home.   
  
Many, many years later, Karol’s friend Jurek will be at his dentist’s when white smoke wafts up from the Vatican.   Jurek will be the first to greet his friend when he sits upon the Papal throne.

_\- end -_

**Author's Note:**

> In real life, Karol Wojtyla - Pope John Paul II - granted his first audience to his Jewish best friend Jerzy “Jurek” Kluger. When Kluger tried to kneel and kiss the Papal ring, the Pope stopped him. _“You must never bow your knee to me, Jurek. Stand straight as you always have.”_
> 
> I'd like to thank readergirl1013 and sheilded-hearts of tumblr for looking over my little ficlet and making sure I didn't goof up anything related to Jewish mourning rituals.


End file.
